Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

(S^viuiaoirf
Abraham Davenport, William Williams, Titus Hosmer, Benjamin Payne,
Gen. James Wadsvvorth, Benjamin Huntington, William Hillhouse,
Thaddeus Burr, Nathaniel Wales Jr., Daniel Sherman and Andrew
Adams. "^ From 1784 to 1786 he was the Chief Magistrate of Connecticut,
taking part, as such, in establishing the so-called " continental policy " in
the State, by conceding to Congress the power of impost—an all-important
first step in the formation of a National Government. His elevation to
the chief magistracy is thus spoken of by the author of the " Life of
Jonathan Trumbull :"
"But he [Trumbull] persisted in declining the proposed office, and the people
therefore found another candidate for the gubernatorial chair in Honorable Matthew
Griswold, a gentleman who now, for thirteen consecutive years, side by side with the
veteran Trumbull, of his political faith, like him of tried conduct, high-minded and
patriotic, had occupied the post of Lieutenant-Governor of the State.""'
In 1788 he presided over the Convention for the Ratification of the
Constitution of the United States, to which, as Bancroft says in his latest
historical work, " were chosen the retired and the present highest officers
of its [the State's] Government, the judges of its courts, ' ministers of
the Gospel '
and
nearly sixty who had fought for independence."'"
The foregoing sketch may be properly supplemented by extracts from
Governor Griswold's correspondence—letters both to him and from him
which will serve to set him in fuller light, while at the same time they
bring some of the great public events of his time more vividly before us,
thus grouped, as it were, around an individual life. We first give, nearly
entire, so far as its tattered condition allows, a significant letter from
Roger Sherman, dated January 1 1, 1766 :
" Stuart's Life of Jonathan Trumbull Senr., ut supra, p. 203, note.
«« Id., p. 641.
' History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America. By George
Bancroft. New York, 1882, ii. 256 ;
and
Hollister's Hist, of Conn., ut supra, ii. 456-62.
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